It’s no secret that I love prop driven aircraft in SEA Camo, as I’ve built a wide variety of them over the years. The Search and Rescue missions used a wide variety of aircraft and methods in order to get guys back. Having built the HH-53 Super Jolly Green and a few Skyraiders, all my collection needed was the command bird. An HC-130E/N was used as the command ship on the missions and also provided refueling capabilities for the helo’s.

I have had the 1/48 Hercules in my collection for a long time, but have never gotten the bug to scratch build parts on it. Cutting Edge came to my rescue with a couple detail sets. I ordered them direct through www.meteorprod.com and 2 weeks later began putting the Herc together. The typical Nam era SAR C-130 was equipped with a large radar dome behind the canopy, and also had a different nose cone configuration. The Fulton Nose was designed to retrieve “packages” attached to parachutes. This typically included film cans from the D-21 and Firebee drones, but was also able to pick up guys from the ground. A balloon teathered to the person could be snagged and realed in to the cargo area of the plane. Whether or not this system was used in Vietnam or the surrounding fronts is not certain. Pictures do show an abundance of Fulton equipped 130’s though.

The 2 Cutting Edge Sets: CEC48432—Fulton STAR Recovery System Nose and CEC48429—AN/ARD-17 Cook Aerial Tracker Antenna Radome are well cast and simple to attach. The Radome will require a small casting block to be removed while the nose demands plastic be removed from the kit.

Despite the size of a 1/48 Hercules, the kit builds up very straight forward and with a minimum of effort. Some careful alignment of the front and rear sections will be required. I would suggest removing or modifying the tabs between the nose and rear fuse sections. Get the parts lined up well and apply glue. I reinforced the joint with epoxy. The interior of the kit is pretty basic, but does provide a start if you want to add more detailing. I chose to add some avionics boxes, additional framework, seats, overhead plumbing and built up some wind deflector plates for the rear ramp. To help hide the forward interior, I built up a reasonable looking version of the recovery gear. That consists of a winch box and cable. The upper section of the rear cargo doors also got detailed with a rail for the rescue sling.

The fuse goes together well, and required a bead of gap-filling superglue. In order to attach the Fulton nose, cut along the existing raised line for the nose radome. The cockpit floor and gear box will require some sanding to get the parts to fit in place. I filled the minor gaps with superglue. There is a small plate that gets glued in over the nose and between the chin windows. This part will require a lot of putty to smoothly fair it in. The front window will also require a great deal of alignment and putty to get it in place.

The radome glues in place and will also require some putty to fill the minor gaps and form out the lip at the front end.

Due to all the sanding around this area, I lost a lot of the raised line details. I thought about scribing the kit, but elected just to sand off all but the most important details. The sanding went well with a mix of Squadron medium and fine sanding sticks.

As the interior and fuselage had received modifications, it was only fair that the wings should get some attention too! The flaps are commonly seen down on parked Herc’s so that was a logical step. I have the 1/72nd Photoetched detail set from FlightPath, so I used that as a pattern. The bottom of the flap is cut out from the lower wing. The trailing edge of the upper wing is cut along the existing groove. Glue that to the bottom flap part. I applied a 3mm 1/4 round strip to the front of the flap. Sheet styrene was then glued in to form an airfoil. The top and bottom of the wing are then glued together. I filled in the void using sheet styrene glued at 90 degrees from the bottom part. Triangles for the ribs were cut and spaced according to the photoetch sheet. The flaps will be glued to the back edge of the ribs after the painting is all done.

The rest of the parts buildup and glue in place according to the instructions. The time soon comes for painting. The SEA camo patterns vary a bit on the C-130 depending to its role. The Tan is the pattern that most noticeably changes. Check reference photos to pick a scheme. I used Model Master enamels for all the painting. After painting each shade I mixed thin washes with both lighter and darker tints and sprayed these in an irregular pattern. This was to represent fading. After all the colours were on the model, I mixed a few grey and black tinted washes. These were sprayed where the panel lines used to be, and helped give the model some definition.

The Fulton booms and flaps were glued in place, and final detail painting was done. The decals were from both the kit and an Aeromaster Stars and Bars sheet. The kit decals were very thick and took several days of constant attention with Polly S decal Softener and Gunze Mr. Mark Softner. Final gloss/Flat Coats made them disappear. The Aerials and wires from the nose to the wingtips were added using fishing line. These lines kept the parachute from tangling in the props in case the extended nose booms missed the target.

I enjoyed the 2 months worth of work that went into this model. It certainly fills the void in my SAR collection. I think I’ll wait awhile before I tackle my other 1/48 AC-130 though.